I have had a few pleasant job interviews. Here’s what’s different about those interviews, that made them really stand out from the others I’ve done. I’ll describe a specific example, and then give some specific suggestions.

1. The hiring manager contacted me directly
2. He had done his homework. He had looked at my GitHub repos.
3. He told gave me pretty specific information about the structure of the interview, and gave me ~2 weeks to prepare.
4. The interview was 1-on-1, in person. It lasted 2-3 hours.
5. The first exercise was to have me go through an app and describe what all the pieces were doing.
6. The second exercise was to interact with the app and add a feature or two.
7. The third exercise was to look at a script and identify the bugs (or other problems with it).

It was an outstanding experience because he had clearly put time and effort into preparing the process, and was patient with understanding that while he knew the app inside and out, I did not.